Adventures in family life, my vintage and thrift shop treasure hunt, sewing, creating, and living an intentional life of simplicity and joy.

December 15, 2009

"When you can't see His hand, trust His heart"

“When the trials of life unravelthe fabric of our plans.When we face the deep confusionof painful circumstance.When our feeble strength is broken,and we stand with empty hands.That’s when the Father whispers‘Trust the pattern I have planned.’ ”

~ Lyrics from song, "The Weaver"

There are many different kinds of pain, brokenness, and "empty hands" that are potentially just around the corner on this journey called Life. Sometimes that pain is caused by our own choices . . . . that is one thing that I have been trying to stress to our daughters as we talk about choices and consequences. Because choices always do have consequences, and often-times in life if we make unhealthy, dangerous, or foolish choices we will experience unpleasant consequences. And it is not uncommon of us to experience positive consequences when we make helpful choices. This conversation frequently takes place in the context of being safe, and the wisdom of keeping our family protected. Sometimes little girls (and boys, too) worry about that kind of thing, so we try to help them know that the safest place for them to be, especially at their ages, is with their family.

However, there are those inexplicable times in our lives when we confront tragedy through no particular choice of our own. Or, perhaps it IS a result of choices that we have made at one time in our lives that we THOUGHT were the right choice. Being brought face-to-face with a broken dream when all along we really did believe that we were doing all the right things. But even here, there are many different kinds trials that cause life to unravel right before our eyes. And no matter how hard we try to "fix it" or make it better, we find that "our feeble strength is broken, and we stand with empty hands."

But here is the part that I have found to be a very perplexing aspect of all of this: there are some painful experiences that we can talk about and there are others that simply seem to be inapproppriate to talk about. And I sometimes wonder why, because in the end, no matter what the tragedy we encounter, tragedy is tragedy, and brokenness is brokenness, and empty hands are empty hands.

As a life-long seamstress and quilter, the imagery of "fabric" and "pattern" resonates with my heart. I love the process of discovering (or creating) a pattern that I can envision, completed into a beautiful garment or craft project, in just the perfect fabric. Of course, including all of the trims, buttons, lace, ribbons, and whatever else my imagination can dream up! But anyone who has EVER tried to sew will tell you that there are those times when it just doesn't turn out the way you had envisioned it.

I remember one time, many years ago, when I was working on a sweet little outfit for my oldest daughter. She was very little at the time (meaning I was very young!), and I had never attempted to put the kind of snaps onto a garment that you need that pliers-type thing to attach the snaps. So, I got all four of the little snaps attached to this cute top, and I suddenly discovered that one of the snaps was in the wrong place. I don't remember . . . . too close to one of the other snaps, too close to the edge of the fabric, or something like that . . . . and I attempted to take it out and "fix" it. Of course, that only made the problem worse, because in the process of trying to remove the problem snap, I ended up creating a small hole in the top that I had just spent many hours sewing. I was devastated! It was just that, after all of that hard work, doing everything pretty close to "right," the final result was definitely anything but "right."

And that's the way life can be. But the difference is that, when we run head-on into a disaster in life, even though we are emotionally and spiritually crushed, we can know in our heart and mind that God STILL has a plan and a pattern for what's going on. When I can't see that anything good could actually come out of my circumstances, I can hold tightly to the promise that He knows, He cares, and ultimately He is in control. We need to be reminded of that frequently as we stumble and fall on your way through the darkness that sometimes surrounds us.

The words of a song that always comes to mind when I think about this is: "When you can't see His hand, trust His heart." I have no idea who wrote it, who sings it, or even where I heard it, but it so succintly says exactly what we need to remember in our times of brokenness. And maybe someday we will all have the courage to speak, and the compassion to hear, about the "empty hands" that are all around us, no matter how difficult the words of that broken heart might be. But for now . . . . we must listen for His whisper.

Please visit Loni today at Writing Canvas to find the links to the other IOW participants this week.